Inside the carriage, two puzzling figures sat opposite of each other, gazing at the windows, peering into the scenery while analysing about the future.
"Time, precious beyond all worth, isn't it?" Turning around and looked at Forus Ander, Ocelia Coruscare gradually spoke the sentence in his mind.
"It is also your worst nightmare, having no way to escape its doing." Hearing Ocelia's question, Forus fell into dazes. Her mind wandered into the endless loop of memories, creating from her fragmented recollection.
Seeing Forus fell into her dazes, Ocelia used the opportunity to take a good stare at Forus, marvelling at her facial expression. Although Ocelia was observing the facial expression that belonged to Ocelia previously, seeing it now with the enhancement from the merged charisma and disposition exerted by Forus, her beauty seemed to magnify itself, charming even the previous owner of the body.
Suddenly, Forus faintly shivered before abruptly covered her mouth with her delicate, pale hand. Her face turned pinkish as her eyes tried their best not to let the liquid of sadness and grief loose. From the elegant lady to the pitiful maiden, her demeanour had changed instantly, causing Ocelia to become alarmed.
"Why is this happening? How is this possible? Why? How? Their faces became blurred. How is this possible?" Choking in her tears, Forus kept muttering senselessly, as if she had lost her mind, turning demented.
"Forus, answer me! What is happening?" Ocelia immediately released various detections and curse-lifting spells, defending Forus from all the possible ambush and intervention.
The benefits of overtaking the body of someone else was immense, just thinking about it would make one's mouth watered. From gaining that person's physique and elemental affection to overtake said person memory, personality, disposition and physical features, any of the stated advantages would drive the sorcerers mad with greed.
However, not everything about overtaking a body was good. Since the day Forus had taken the risk to swap bodies with Ocelia, their memory had merged and fused, forming an equilibrium. This balance between remembrances had caused some of their recollection to fade, withering into an insignificant impression.
For others, they might tolerate the loss of those unremarkable features and memories. However, for Forus, the memory of her past was almost the entire purpose of her existence, the sole force that kept pushing her off out the darkness, holding her wills together for her to continue her quest. The quest to accomplish her promises and ended her worries.
Now that the appearance of those Forus treasured the most had started to blur, it had caused her to burst out with the suppressed emotions and gone uncontrolled for a moment.
However, due to her mentality and disposition, Forus soon calmed her mind, dispelling the ripples that troubled her mind. Her face gradually averted back to its original state of pale-white, showing the cold demeanour of the elegant mistress.
The most shocking thing wasn't the fact that Forus had forgotten her beloved, but that the face of her late wife, Meria Ander, had been replaced, occupied and became that of Ocelia Coruscare as if Forus had indeed wedded Ocelia as her deceased wife before she had suffered her first tragedy.
Forus quickly suppressed her shock before regaining her calm. The more she knew about the after effect of taking over someone else's body, the more she wanted to return to her previous figure, which was superior to this current body.
Forus also decided to bring Ocelia with her for this reason, going into the ancient ruin that would open soon together, into the Fleeting Emotions Ruin. If the chance presented itself, Forus Ander would, without any hesitation, swap back to her previous body and tried to make Ocelia Coruscare bowed to him, becoming his forever.
According to the intel provided by Coruscare Family, the remains got found by the ancient ancestors of Coruscare Family and Ninguis Family, leading to both of them taking over the wreck, allowing their youths to train themselves and get some treasures from the remains.
They set a price for the outsiders to enter the ruin, because of this none of the external power could come and find any excuse to band together and attacked them.
Hearing the name of the ruin for the first time, Forus instantly thought about the mysterious words from Lord Phasma, speaking about the Thought Domain, the origin of the Ring of Recollection.
Because of those reasons, Forus had decided to risk her life once more. If she didn't do anything and practised her sorcery as any ordinary sorcerers would, she would lose the chance to take back her previous body. Even until this moment, the hibernating spiritual seed was still waiting for the moment to burst out again, continually reminding Forus and Ocelia of the mysterious sorcerer Forus had once offended, nearly killing her disciple.
Both of them knew that the mentor of the righteous sorcerer would come for Ocelia, who resided within Forus' body, capturing him to help her traumatised disciple overcame the shadow that Forus had previously cast onto her soul and mind, weakening her sorcery cultivation.
With everything in her mind, Forus could deduce that her future of retrieving her body back would be full of calamity and crisis, however, for the sake of her survival and above all else, to find a way to restore her memory and became stronger, enough to travel the world to see her family for one last time.
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"Thank you, dear. I only thought about the nightmare from the past." Looking into the pair of worried eyes, Forus smiled gracefully before turning her head outwards, setting her sight at the scenery and fell into her thoughts.
Ocelia could only helplessly watch Forus as he didn't know what to say to console her. He knew that Forus was hiding something extraordinary, however, probing too much into the matter could cause their intimate relationship to worsen, which was not something Ocelia wanted.
...
At the same time as the Coruscare Family sent out their carriage towards the Fleeting Emotions Ruin, other families also had their plans and sent out their carts as well.
Inside one of the fancy carriage that didn't look any worse than Coruscare Family's carriage, three figures were sitting on the seats quietly, doing their things respectively. The grey-robed servant was keeping his eyes out for the possible change. After gaining the position of the personal servant of Glacies Ninguis, his sorcery cultivation also had risen, reaching the peak of the third-layered sorcerer apprentice.
The young master of the servant was reading the reports, occasionally frowned as he scanned them. After his humiliating loss at the Steel Cauldron, Glacies had directed his fury at Falsus Nomen, instead of being angry at Ocelia due to his blind affection.
The last figure was a graceful maiden, looking out into the wildness while revising a particular scene in her head, trying her best to find fault and mistakes she did during the event, resulting in her loss. Although Abicel felt frustrated towards her defeat, after calming herself and looked at the situation subjectively, she found that the failure was nothing much, and instead gained several foreign ideas and tricks that she could use to improve her art of alchemy.
"Avidas, what do you think about the matter between Ocelia and Falsus?" Glacies suddenly spoke up, glaring at the servant in grey intensely, not concealing any jealous that occupied his eyes.
"Young master, this one thinks that Falsus must have something that attracted the attention of the mistress of the Coruscare Family. Otherwise, there was no way that the ordinary commoner could get her attention." Avidas tactically replied, avoid offending both the Ninguis Family and the Coruscare Family.
"Mister Glacies, I think that the extraordinary power and talent that he displayed during the recruitment event have captured the attention of Miss Ocelia. Maybe she noticed the mysterious techniques Falsus used during the concoction method." Abicel randomly voiced her thought. Although she was talented and had remarkable standing in the Steel Cauldron, the group was huge and had many stars. They couldn't afford to nurture all the geniuses they had.
Because of the appearance of Falsus Nomen, the monstrous prodigy that suppressed her in term of talents, Abicel would undoubtedly get less resource than she would have if Falsus didn't exist. She also wanted to have more connection, allowing her to expand her network to decrease the difficulty in getting the desired rare components.
With all things considered, Abicel decided to work with the Ninguis Family, getting into their favoured list. That way, she could receive both the resource from the Steel Cauldron and the Ninguis Family, benefitting even more than before. As long as she didn't meddle with the political scene, she wouldn't encounter any trouble.
"Don't worry, young master. The Fleeting Emotions Ruin was without any surveillance. If anything happened inside the ruin, no one would be able to find the cause of the incident." Avidas whispered into Glacies' ears, telling several reasons why the ruin was the isolated ground, igniting the flame of hatred inside his mind.
If Abicel paid her attention and heard what Avidas was trying to do, she would, without any hesitation, objected the plan and tried her best to stop this foolish idea. However, Avidas also knew about this. He kept the conversation to only his young master, and intentionally lowered his voice.
...
A lady sat alone, looking at the blooming flowers, marvelling in their freshness. Her mind was floating in the sky, reminiscing about the shocking event that almost caused her to faint. Iracia Chlora was waiting for someone to arrive.
After a while, another figure walked right towards her in a constant and relaxing rhythm. The silhouette wore a reddish cloak that fluttered with the movement of the wind, giving off the collected air.
The man in red looked at his surrounding before sitting in front of Iracia, looking straight into her eyes. To his surprise, the lady didn't evade his gaze, but instead, she used her sharp eyes to bite him back.
"What do you think about my proposal?" After a longspun eyes contact, Mabilis was the one who couldn't endure it and spoke first, breaking the eyes contact as he did so.
"Two is always better than one. Don't you think so?" Iracia casually spoke while raising her hand in front of Mabilis, waiting for him to respond.
Although Mabilis could tell from the start that Iracia would agree to his plan, he still couldn't control his facial expression and lightly smile in the end. With the background of Iracia, the daughter of an elder from the Steel Cauldron, she could effortlessly gain access to the information about the Fleeting Emotions Ruin.
"Yes, milady." Feeling playful, Mabilis decided to play along, extending his hand to hold her hand gently before helping the lady stood up.
Because of their actions, the ordinary sorcerer apprentices around them began to set their sight on the two, trying to prob out their relationship. However, the two seemed unfazed. The man continued to hold the lady's hand and escorted her to view the scenery.
Despite the lovely atmosphere between the two, they naturally didn't have any intimate feelings towards each other. Their alliance was for the mutual benefits and could crumble down at any moment, not like the pact between Forus Ander and Ocelia Coruscare, where they got bound by the oath of the World Will and the unforgettable feeling of affection between their soul.
...
Inside the room full of dust and moss, the entangled webs, which continuously changed their shape, silently sent out a cloudy glow that illuminated the room.
Suddenly, numerous lines of webs abruptly stopped their motion before slowly changing their shape into something vague and obscure, becoming more and more life-like.
The process of changing their shape had caused the room to shake uncontrollably, alerting the guardians of the chamber. Sensing the commotion, the sorcerers swiftly opened the gate before pressing his finger onto the empty air, producing a small rift in space and sent out a shadowy crane into the void.
Not long after the wait, the trembling of the room intensified, causing the guarding sorcerers to panic. However, without their knowledge, space before them began to distort, twisting violently before breaking apart, revealing a mysterious figure.
Seeing the figure, the first-ranked sorcerers kneeled onto the ground and paid their respect before telling the person about the change. For the first-ranked sorcerers to revere a person, that person must be at least the second-ranked sorcerer.
"So soon? Very well, the faster we go, the higher the chance our plan succeed." The figure said calmly before waving his hand, sending out magical signals to other higher-ups, notifying them about the situation.
"Big brother, I shall avenge your death myself." Intor Ander whispered his wish while his body was melting into transparent particles, merging with space and disappearing into the void.